[Peace-discuss] notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Notes for your consideration on News from Neptune in which one can find pointers to some media the 
mainstream corporate sources won't cover, and critique DN for their ongoing support of Russiagate.

Have a great show, guys.



https://on.rt.com/a910 -- Danielle Ryan op-ed on "Trump’s threat to freeze Iraq’s US bank account 
over request to withdraw troops is pure mobster-style intimidation"

> On January 5, the Iraqi parliament voted to approve a resolution calling for the removal of US
> troops. A day later, Donald Trump threatened to hit Iraqis with deadly economic sanctions “like
> they’ve never seen before” if Baghdad tries to expel American troops without first “paying us
> back” for an “extraordinarily expensive air base” built there.
> 
> Days later, when Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham grotesquely suggested that Iraq should indeed
> "repay the American taxpayer" for the base — built after US forces laid waste to the country in
> an illegal invasion — Trump, in typical fashion, did not even try to cloak his threat in
> niceties, opting for unequivocal blackmail instead.
> 
> "We have a lot of their money right now. We have 35 billion dollars of their money right now
> sitting in an account — and I think they'll agree to pay. I think they'll agree to pay, otherwise
> we'll stay there.”
> 
> How embarrassing for Americans this guy is. A disgrace. He sounds like a mobster or an
> extortionist. #MAGA 😂#Syria#Iraq#Trumppic.twitter.com/XbsNyp8Mi7 — Walid (@walid970721) January
> 12, 2020
> 
> Iraq keeps its revenue from oil sales, which accounts for 90 percent of its budget, in the New
> York bank. Like many other countries around the world, they do this in order to be able to access
> the dominant US dollar, but that comes with risks. Iraqi officials have warned of total economic
> collapse if Trump goes through with the threat to impose new sanctions and hold the country’s
> money hostage, at a time when Iraqis are struggling to get by and tensions in the region are
> already on the rise.
> 
> In this context, Trump’s comment to Ingraham sounds like the equivalent of something you might
> hear in a mobster movie: You be good, do what we say — and maybe then we won’t kill your family.
> 
> What happened to Washington’s deep desire to secure freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people?
> In a statement released following the Iraqi parliament’s vote to expel American troops — which
> have been present in the country to fight ISIS militants under a 2014 deal —  the US State
> Department somehow managed to completely ignore the resolution and instead harp on about how it
> is a “force for good” in the region. Calling the US’s presence in the country “appropriate,” the
> statement shot down the notion that US troops would be leaving any time soon. Also on rt.com US
> won’t heed Iraq’s call for troop withdrawal, calls military presence there ‘appropriate’
> 
> This is essentially the US once again asserting itself as a brute occupying force in Iraq,
> blatantly ignoring Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi’s request for Washington to begin preparations
> for withdrawal. Barely an eyebrow was raised in Western media, though, because for too long there
> has been an assumption that American troops have a simple, unassailable right to be in Iraq. It
> has somehow become completely normal and unremarkable for the US to dictate the terms of Iraq’s
> survival.
> 
> The statement went on to assert that the US wants to be a “partner” to a “sovereign” Iraq. A real
> "partner" does not use threats of devastating economic warfare as leverage — and if Trump or any
> of the empire-driven neocons advising him were truly interested in a sovereign Iraq, they would
> respect the wishes of the Iraqi parliament and set in motion a plan to remove America’s troops.
> 
> This is pure thuggery. "The Trump administration warned Iraq this week that it risks losing
> access to a critical government bank account if Baghdad kicks out American forces ... according
> to Iraqi officials." https://t.co/ID9plNgyL5pic.twitter.com/TSDPsk2qfk — Shashank Joshi (@shashj)
> January 11, 2020
> 
> It’s not the first time the US has threatened to freeze Iraq’s Fed account and used its own money
> as leverage to produce favored geopolitical outcomes. In 2008, the Bush administration used the
> same tactic to force Iraq to sign an unpopular military deal prolonging its previous occupation.
> Barack Obama admitted, after all, that the US engages in “arm-twisting” to force other nations to
> “do what we need them to do.”
> 
> If it came down to it, Washington would be perfectly happy to use Iraq as a battleground on which
> to fight a war against Iran — and this is exactly the reason why Iraqis have begun to feel
> increasingly uneasy about a continued US troop presence in their country. Far from a “force for
> good” in the region, the US is a bringer of chaos — and Iraq knows that better than anyone else.



Assange: The railroading/show-trial continues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKj9Di580Cg -- An RT report from a rally outside Westminster 
Magistrates. Why RT? Because RT is one of very few outlets that reports on Assange's condition at 
all. This includes Democracy Now, where the most recent story featuring the word "Assange" is from 
December 5, 2019 (visit https://www.democracynow.org/search?utf8=✓&query=assange to check if that's 
still true when you read this).

A transcript from the video:
> Speaker 1: We've had a short hearing today and practically the entire focus of it was the lack of
> access that Julian Assange's legal team has had to their client. Gareth Peirce, Julian's
> solicitor, said that since the last time that they talked in the court they've had precisely two
> hours of contact with their client, he was brought to the court today because they expected to be
> able to spend considerable amounts of time with him preparing the case here at court. The judge
> told them that because of the number of other prisoners in the court that was going to be reduced
> to just one hour, and it was clear, I think from the judge's attitude, which in previous hearing
> has been distinctly unsympathetic, that even she thought that this was an outrageous denial of
> proper preparation of this legal case.
> 
> Speaker 2: Julian Assange is a publisher and a journalist, he is not someone who should be in
> prison. If they have these ridiculous, ridiculous hearings about an American extradition request
> then they should be done while he's on bail and in a safe environment with his friends his family
> and his legal team.




Coverage by the media: Warren/Sanders kerfuffle is really about corporate media lying on behalf of 
the establishment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTWM1_qIcI -- Jimmy Dore on Sanders/Warren debate coverage 
including clear evidence of CNN lying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5X0OReq2IY -- Jimmy Dore on New York Times lying including citing 
CNN's baseless lying as backing for their own lying.

CNN published an evidenceless claim sourced with 4 anonymous figures. The claim in 
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/politics/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-meeting/index.html reads:

Headline: "Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren in private 2018 meeting that a woman can't win, 
sources say" by MJ Lee

> The stakes were high when Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren met at Warren's apartment in
> Washington, DC, one evening in December 2018. The longtime friends knew that they could soon be
> running against each other for president.
> 
> The two agreed that if they ultimately faced each other as presidential candidates, they should
> remain civil and avoid attacking one another, so as not to hurt the progressive movement. They
> also discussed how to best take on President Donald Trump, and Warren laid out two main reasons
> she believed she would be a strong candidate: She could make a robust argument about the economy
> and earn broad support from female voters.
> 
> Sanders responded that he did not believe a woman could win.
> 
> The description of that meeting is based on the accounts of four people: two people Warren spoke
> with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting.
> 
> After publication of this story, Warren herself backed up this account of the meeting, saying in
> part in a statement Monday, "I thought a woman could win; he disagreed."
> 
> That evening in 2018, Sanders expressed frustration at what he saw as a growing focus among
> Democrats on identity politics, according to one of the people familiar with the conversation.
> Warren told Sanders she disagreed with his assessment that a woman could not win, three of the
> four sources said.
> 
> Sanders denied the characterization of the meeting in a statement to CNN.

None of the 4 alleged sources are named and none clearly attended this meeting -- two of them spoke 
"directly soon after the encounter" (Is that a day later? 10 minutes after? A week later? What is 
"directly soon" exactly?) and two people were "familiar with the meeting". This language too is not 
the same as saying these anonymous people attended the meeting.

Then there's what happened at the Democratic Presidential so-called Debate which CNN hosted and ran 
asking a question based on their own sourceless reporting:

> CNN questioner: Senator Sanders, I do want to be clear here: You're saying that you never told
> Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election.
> 
> Bernie Sanders: That is correct.
> 
> CNN questioner: Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could
> not win the election?
> 
> [Sanders shakes his head, the crowd laughs.]
This CNN report and Q&A at the "debate" was so ridiculous that even MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program 
called it out:

> Mika Brzezinski, "Morning Joe" co-host: I am completely confused as to why it turned from Bernie 
> Sanders saying I didn't say it to Elizabeth Warren being asked when he said it. So you turn to 
> Elizabeth Warren and say 'Did he say it?'. That's the issue. I mean, it's bizarre! What the heck 
> happened there? Are they listening? 'Cause you gotta listen when you do a debate and then take 
> the question to the next candidate! [...] By the way, I've had conversations, private 
> conversations, taken to the press and totally manipulated for the benefit of the person who was 
> sharing the story. This happens all the time. It's clear there is a misunderstanding or
> Elizabeth Warren is focused on something that was said--
> 
> Jimmy Dore [interjecting]: OR -- third option -- she's [Sen. Warren] lying to gain a political 
> advantage and doing it in an underhanded, transparently slimy and dishonest way. That's the
> third option and she [Brzezinski] left that one out.
> 
> Mika Brzezinski, "Morning Joe" co-host: --and Bernie Sanders is not gonna be someone who says 'I 
> don't think a woman can win' that's just stupid!
The panel on "Morning Joe" concurred with Brzezinski. Keep in mind, these are MSNBC show hosts: they 
are the same professional liars who (as Jimmy Dore said) "call anyone they don't agree with Russians 
and even to them this is beyond the pale". These are not upstanding journalists taking on the 
establishment, they're well-paid commentators who are part of the establishment defending the 
interests of the billionaires who own the MSNBC network.

Jimmy Dore adds:
> Jimmy Dore: Okay, I'm gonna unpack it for you Mika so you won't be confused anymore: This is a 
> hit job that originated, probably, at the Elizabeth Warren [campaign] and the DNC together came
> up with this idea and then they called up CNN and they planted this story and they go 'We can't
> give you any-- just write this story for us!' because CNN's in bed with the Democratic Party, the
> establishment, and they were in bed for Hillary Clinton and now they're in the tank for Elizabeth
> Warren.
How do we know CNN's repeated claim is completely untrue? Here's a transcript of a segment of Bernie 
Sanders speaking on video on C-SPAN on January 20, 1988:

> Bernie Sanders: The real issue is not whether you're black or white, whether you're a woman or a
> man -- in my view a woman could be elected President of the United States -- the real issue is
> whose side are you on? Are you on the side of the workers and poor people? Or are you on the side
> of big money and the corporations?
And we also know CNN is lying because Sanders tried to recruit Elizabeth Warren to run for US 
President in 2015, a point Joe Scarborough (co-host of "Morning Joe") brought up on-air.

Consider another CNN interview with Jess McIntosh, political commentator (from 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCwKh30WSd8 )
> Jess McIntosh: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, I think that the moment between Warren and Bernie is 
> obviously the one that's going to be replayed the most and I think that what Bernie forgot was 
> that this isn't a he said-she said story, this is a reported out story that CNN was part of 
> breaking...

CNN doesn't consistently tell their audience who McIntosh was: she was the Communications Director 
for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. It stands to reason that she could have an axe to grind 
favoring a neo-con/neo-lib such as Elizabeth Warren and against someone with domestic policies like 
Sanders'.

Later, the New York Times (see 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/14/us/politics/democratic-debate-recap.html ) published an article 
which distorted what happened:

> Prompted by the moderators, Ms. Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders continued a back-and-forth over
> the fraught subject of whether a woman could be elected president [...]

Anyone who heard what Sanders said at the debate, knew of his history with Warren, or heard him in 
1988 knows there was no debate about this. NYT article authors Shane Goldmacher and Jonathan Martin 
are lying on behalf of the establishment (which is rewarded and never punished) providing backing 
for the baseless claim that the two debated "whether a woman could be elected president".

Perhaps now more people understand why Pres. Trump gets such an approving response when he calls CNN 
"fake news" and says the New York Times "is going to hell" 
(https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doug-mills-new-york-times-photographer-trump-calls-a-genius-2019-12-17/). 
Anyone who recalls the Times' coverage of Iraqi WMDs leading up to the 2003 invasion & occupation of 
Iraq would argue saying the NYT is "going" to hell is generous to the Times.



Russiagate/Coverage by the media: Democracy Now offers up more corporate-friendly Russiagate spin on 
the resignation of the Russian government and Pres. Putin's proposed changes. RT offers more 
information and a read that actually fits their own headlines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbf_2u511h8 -- RT report:

> Try explaining this: when Putin empowers the office of president, the media accuses him of
> seizing more power, more control over Russia. But when Putin gives up that power and hands it over
> to Parliament at his own expense it is also because he's seizing more control over Russia. As
> first to discover this syndrome, I named it 'Paranoid Putinophrenia' and there's a real
> epidemic:
jbn: RT offers a series of headlines from corporate media backing their claim:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/15/europe/russian-government-resigns-vladimir-putin-reforms-intl/
CNN: Russian government resigns as Putin proposes reforms that could extend his grip on power

https://time.com/5765369/russia-prime-minister-medvedev-government-resigns/
Time: Putin engineers surprised Russian political shake-up that could keep him in power longer

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/russian-pm-resigns-after-putin-announces-constitutional-overhaul_n_5e1f2403c5b674e44b90bd98
Huffpost: Russian government resigns as Putin plots post presidency power-grab

jbn: I'll add one more headline to the mix:

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/16/russia_putin_medvedev_tony_wood
https://archive.md/wip/JntTr
Democracy Now: Putin Proposes Sweeping Changes to Russian Constitution, Possibly Prolonging His Grip 
on Power

But that DN headline is just as untrue as the corporate media and doesn't capture what their 
Russiagator guest, Tony Wood, said:

> AMY GOODMAN: Do you see Putin doing something along the lines of what the Chinese President Xi 
> did with getting rid of term limits?
> 
> TONY WOOD: I think, actually, we need to see this change and the set of changes that he’s
> talking about as designed to avoid that solution. I think one of the reasons that these things
> have happened is that since 2018, when Putin was re-elected to another six-year term, the
> question on everyone’s minds has been “What is going to happen in 2024? Is he going to stay
> forever? Is he going to leave?” And what these changes do is really open up that question to say
> he’s probably not going to stay as president, because he can’t do that, but here are a series of
> other roles he could slip into, and he will have some kind of alternative power base.
> 
> The other thing it says is that whoever becomes president after him is not going to have
> anywhere near as much power as Putin has had. So, what’s confusing about this, I think — and this
> is why I think we need to see how this plays out — is that it looks like Putin is carving out a
> way for him to slide into a parallel role and remain powerful. So, he’s remaking a system, but
> breaking it, as well, so that no one has as much power as he used to have.

jbn: Wait -- if "he’s probably not going to stay as president, because he can’t do that" that 
doesn't "prolong his grip on power". And it makes us ask: why can't he stay in power? It's because 
of the changes he's making where he proposed limits on his own power and setting up a system where 
"whoever becomes president after him is not going to have anywhere near as much power as Putin has had"?

And all of these changes are up to the people in two major ways:

1. The upcoming referendum vote -- the people will decide if they want these changes.

2. The bulk of the changes shifts more power from a single authority to a more democratically 
determined body.

It's also worth pointing out that if the people didn't want him to be in power as long as he was, 
they could have voted him out before. People did run against him in their most recent presidential 
election and they were heard from in televised debates (which is more than we can say for some US 
presidential candidates).

To back the suspicion that Putin did something wrong by being President for so long we need evidence 
that he didn't really win re-elections. Tony Wood, Amy Goodman, and Nermeen Shaikh offer no such 
evidence. And it's telling that none of the participants quote Putin's own words.

https://on.rt.com/a94d -- "Russian political earthquake: Putin sets out plan for Kremlin departure & 
Medvedev resigns"

> Today, the president set out the roadmap for his exit from the Kremlin, more-or-less kicking off 
> the build-up to the transition of power. He will step down in 2024, or perhaps even earlier, and 
> he intends to dismantle the “hyper-Presidential” system which allowed him to wield so much 
> control in office. This was introduced by Boris Yeltsin in 1993 with American support, after he 
> had used tanks to fire on the Parliament. Also on rt.com Russian government resigns after 
> President Putin’s state-of-the-nation address proposes changes to the constitution
> 
> Putin plans to give more powers to the latter body, with the prime minister, in particular, 
> enjoying more authority. He also wants to bulk up the role of the State Council. Indeed, he will 
> probably end up there himself after leaving office, in some sort of “elder statesman” role. The 
> body will consist of heads of Russian regions and members of the Presidential Administration. It 
> seems it will fulfill an advisory function.
> 
> To achieve these goals, Putin wants to reduce presidential powers and introduce a two-term
> limit. This would mean a maximum of 12 years in the Kremlin; he has already been there for 16.
> The broad vision is to have more checks and balances, with a weaker presidency and other branches
> of government strengthened.
> 
> Make no mistake, Putin’s goal is to preserve the system which he inherited from Yeltsin, and
> then tweaked. For all its faults, after a difficult birth it has given Russians the greatest
> freedom and prosperity they have ever known. Even if much work remains to be done on
> distributing economic gains more fairly.
jbn: It's interesting that RT points out what DN does not -- RT points out that Putin got "the 
system which he inherited from Yeltsin", the system the US approved of (Yeltsin was the 
American-friendly stooge in Russia). But to hear corporate-friendly media talk about that system (or 
any derivative of it) now, there's no mention of the American-led past or that the proposed changes 
offer "more checks and balances, with a weaker presidency and other branches of government 
strengthened".

Tony Wood wasn't clear on what the changes were (a clear description of the changes would have 
further highlighted the contradiction between Wood's role on DN as Russiagator versus the available 
evidence from Putin's speech describing his own proposed reforms). The far more informative RT 
reports on this have quoted Putin and offered a summary of the pending changes:

> The Cabinet
> Now: appointed by president, approved by parliament
> After changes: appointed by parliament, president can't object
> 
> Top security and military officials
> Now: appointed by president
> After changes: appointed by president with parliamentary consultation
> 
> Power to dismiss supreme, constitutional judges
> Now: courts decide
> After changes: Parliament decides

jbn: Democracy Now's Amy Goodman published a headline which reads "Russian Government Resigns as 
Vladimir Putin Seeks to Retain Power Beyond 2024" 
(https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/16/headlines/russian_government_resigns_as_vladimir_putin_seeks_to_retain_power_beyond_2024) 
but she didn't tell the audience that Putin is expected to move to what's been described as an 
"advisory function" "in some sort of 'elder statesman' role" 
(https://www.rt.com/op-ed/478381-russian-government-resignation-mishustin/) which doesn't confer as 
much power as he has now. Nor was Goodman interested in telling her audience that the Russian voters 
will decide on whether to adopt Putin's proposed changes.

Shame on you, Amy Goodman, Nermeen Shaikh, and the rest of the Democracy Now team. Your 
Russiagate-repeating means you've thrown away what street cred you earned years ago during the 
run-up to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.




Labor: Amazon is still mistreating their workforce. Organizing proves fruitful to challenge 
management and reverse some minor violations of unduly harsh leave policies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP2ZHzof77E -- 218 Amazon co-workers and thousands of customers 
support more time off (and paid time off) for Amazon employees and strike to get sit-down talks with 
Amazon management.

https://labornotes.org/2020/01/amazon-warehouse-workers-deliver-christmas-walkout -- "Amazon 
Warehouse Workers Deliver Christmas Walkout"

> Workers at Amazon’s DSM1 warehouse in Sacramento celebrated Christmas in their own fashion—by
> walking out. It was the latest move in their campaign for paid time off.
> 
> Night-shift workers delivered a petition with 4,015 signatures to management during their 2:30
> a.m. break on December 23. After reading out loud their demands for a meeting with management and
> paid time off, 36 of the 100 night-shift workers clocked out at 2:45 a.m. and walked off the job
> mid-shift.
> 
> “A lot of people were scared, but it was encouraging to see how many people came through,” said
> one of the workers who walked out. (The organizing committee has agreed that members won’t
> identify themselves individually.) “That was the best result from the action, showing ourselves
> and our co-workers we can all do this.
> 
> “We didn’t cause any major disruptions necessarily to deliveries, but it was good to show people
> we can stick together,” the worker added.

[...]

> The Sacramento group first took on the company over the most blatant effects of its strict
> time-off policies, which allow workers to take just 20 unpaid hours off per quarter. In
> September, a worker at the warehouse was fired for going one hour over her allotted unpaid time
> off while her mother-in-law was dying in the hospital. Her co-workers quickly put together a
> petition demanding that she be rehired and circulated it around the facility.
> 
> While talking to other workers, the petitioners discovered that another worker had been fired for
> a minor violation of the time-off policy, and demanded that he be rehired as well. The group
> delivered 80 signatures to management. Within 24 hours, HR contacted the first worker to tell her
> that she would be rehired with back pay; the second worker received his notification a few days
> later.
> 
> Getting these two workers rehired through collective action appears to be the first example of
> such a win by Amazon workers in the U.S.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAQ5K2YySLw -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to put men (who identify 
as women) in women's prisons. Those who don't accept identity politics (or the notion that a man 
becomes a woman merely by claiming as such) argue this is a horrible and dangerous idea for women. 
RT's interview with journalist Megan Murphy.

> Megan Murphy: [...] I am NOT saying anything hateful, really, what I'm defending are women's
> rights and then I'm stating basic facts. You know, for example, you can't change sex. It's not
> possible, if you're born male, to become female. I fully support people, you know, dressing,
> behaving in ways that make them feel like they're living out full authentic lives, but a male
> can't become a female, a female can't become a male. And that shouldn't be a controversial thing
> to say but trans activists have so much control over this debate and narrative that anyone who
> challenges the ideology behind transgenderism is labeled bigoted and, you know, 'no platformed',
> ostracized, bullied, threatened with violence, of course. You know I've I've received death
> threats -- just on Friday I got a call from the police as a as a death threat had been sent to
> the event venue that I I'm scheduled to appear at for an upcoming event saying you know if you
> don't shut it down I'm gonna come there and get rid of Megan myself, so it's it's quite scary.
> [...]
-J